Animosity of the Dark
by Etoile de Nuit
Summary: Ana's cranky, disrespectful, and unappreciative. Of course, to remedy this, she loses everything she's ever known, including that which is most important: Herself. Rated T for language, violence, and character death.
1. Prologue

Prologue

09/14/05

"Hey, you, little girl, move over, I'm trying to walk here!" A burly mannishly-ugly senior girl shoved past a few juniors, including an especially stubborn one who was rooted to her spot, knocking away her hand as she moved to push her out of the way. "Did you freakin' hear me? I said move, ya midget!" She made one last move to grab the girl by her tawny brown hair and get her out of the way once and for all. However, as she made the move towards the girl's hair, the junior spun on her heel and seized her wrist.

"Ya know, by now you'd think you'd just have enough courtesy to walk around me. There's plenty of room there too. Of course, with your size, you might need to make arrangements ahead of time for a special entrance." The junior curled her mouth into a smirk at her own cruel joke and threw the senior's wrist back at her. "Now look what you've done, you've made me lose my appetite. Looks like I'll spend lunch in the library." She shoved her hands in her pockets and tried to waltz past, as if nothing had happened, but one of the senior's friends snatched her up by the back of her collar just before she got away. The culprit dragged her back to the scene and locked her arms behind her, shoving her into the senior's face as if she was a guilty thief.

"Yer not gonna just let'er go, are ya Darc? She needs ta be punished, right?" Darc's little flunky shook the junior around a bit, making her head jostle around sickeningly. Darc then grinned, enjoying this winning little situation quite well, bending down to come face to face with the junior, who was in fact quite small for her age. She had the sick grin of a cowardly politician, lying and running away until she had enough minions to take on someone head-on.

"What's yer name, midget? I could use some spunk like you, course ya'd hafta be loyal, we might hafta beat that one into ya. So what do yer tiny little excuses for friends call you?"

"Bite me, bitch. Like I'd ever be your little flun-" Darc landed a painful right hook right to the junior's jaw and they both heard a snap, their captive keeping her head to the side as she fought not to cry in pain of her jaw getting broken. Ms. Big-and-Burly backed up to admire her work, giggling dementedly at another's pain. The few underclassmen passing by made whispers of pity for her new object of aggression, but feared getting involved for their own safety, so they filed past, pretending they were just harmless parts of the scenery of the hallway. The upperclassmen weren't any help either, not that they would be, either being on Darc's side or not giving a damn about some junior getting her lesson for mouthing off an upperclassman. Darc took this opportunity in stride and prepared to give the junior bitch a swift kick just before another of her ugly minions spoke up.

"Hey wait, Darc, I just remembered, I know her. She's in my…uh…Oh yeah, she was in my Literature class in 5th grade, her name's uh…Ana I think." The minion stood with her mouth half open even after she'd finished talking, giving her the look of a teacher who had forgotten where she'd left off after answering a question. However, she spoke no more, so Darc assumed she'd said all she needed to say. Either way, she turned back to the junior, who she now knew as Ana, and bent down to pull on Ana's left eyelid, tugging annoyingly on her eyelashes so she couldn't blink, blowing in her eye to piss her off more and more. She could see Ana breaking, snarling now and shaking her shoulders furiously to get loose, blinking her right eye insanely. Giving up any hope of getting her hands loose, and now getting very angry that she couldn't blink properly, Ana delivered a crushing horse's kick to her captor's kneecaps, giving herself enough of a space between the kick and the captor's screams of pain to get loose and on top of Darc.

Seizing her chance, Ana grabbed handfuls of Darc's dirt-brown hair and cracked punch after punch to her pudgy face, snarling furiously between each one. The flunkies were on her in a second, but she rolled out of the dog pile so Darc ended up the victim instead. Satisfied with getting away partially intact, she focused her attention back on her now heavily-throbbing broken jaw. With no more adrenaline to drive her through her fits of rage, the pain quickly grew to borderline excruciating as she tried to wobble out the front door to get home. Her tawny hair was tattered from the encounter and some of the locks at the front had even stuck to her left eye, since it's being dried out and re-moistened made it a magnet. She blinked a few times to whisk the hair away, but so much stimulus to her retina had caused her nose to run and she sneezed, throwing her jaw pain to new levels. She tried her best to keep it to a hiss, since yelling or so much as saying "ow" would make it worlds worse.

She'd made it to the front courtyard walk of the school when she realized she'd left her bag and books in her class when she'd gone to lunch, and knowing she already had homework, leaving them and going home wasn't an option anymore. Now giving up rubbing the many areas of her that ached her, she simply resolved her arms to her sides in defeat, slouching down the hallway, past all of the teacher's asking her why she wasn't at lunch, past the librarian trying to give another 2-minute quickie lecture on returning her books on time, which were now 3 weeks late, past the principal demanding to know what happened in the hallway earlier. None of them mattered, all that mattered was getting her bag and getting her tired self home to bed and getting her jaw wired back together.

Without looking up, she navigated the hallways, back to the 1400's, and shuffling into her Physics class, back to her desk, lumbering her bag onto her shoulder, and shuffling back out without a word to her teacher, who'd stopped mid-bite of his sandwich to ask why her jaw was hanging so strangely. Taking the back hallway to the back door, a quicker and sneakier way she often used to skip class, she ended up back on the front walk just as the bell for lunch to end rang shrilly, making her wince in surprise.

Making use of the stone bench between two hyacinth bushes, she took a seat and pondered her next move, remembering that she hadn't given it a thought, she'd only been concerned with getting out of there before Darc and her buddies could fight their way loose. Trying to forget the embarrassing events of the day, she stretched out to lie down over the cool stone, the September chill cooling the bench comfortably. At least once every week, she'd come out here, whether it was on break or just to get away from class. The hyacinths smelled lovely, though the smell wasn't over-powering enough to rule her senses. She rolled over, tracing her fingers in the intricate details of the feet, loose little curls that her fingers could run through all the way to the center, where little limestone fairies sat, peaceably gazing off into the distance, as if nothing but what color the sky was mattered.

Ana had helped design this same bench in her 6th grade art class, at the elementary school down the street. Their final project had been to design and create a notable piece of art, whether it be a charcoal drawing or a painting, the teacher gave them almost complete free range. However, Ana hadn't the resources to create the bench she wanted, so asking the teacher, he decided such a grand idea could be a true piece of displayable art. It had taken her 3 months to create the bench, with the help of her caretaker and teacher as well of course, but the design had been all hers. At the time, she couldn't be more proud of her success, but now, it just seemed like a blur in the continuity of her life. Thankfully, this was one of the very few surfaces that hadn't been the victim of the school's typical cruel graffiti. Perhaps even the talent-less hacks of this junkyard could have some appreciation for such art.

Lost in thought, it took her a few moments to realize a car, particularly a shiny silver Eclipse, had pulled up in the drive in front of her, honking insistently. Not entirely interested in what this persistent person had to do with her, she creaked into a sitting position with her legs dangling off; watching bored as the driver turned around and rolled down the passenger window from the console on the driver's left. As the tinted window disappeared, midnight hair, lipstick and mascara appeared on a beautifully pale face. This was what made Ana finally sit up to look. The driver finally turned her fluffy head, causing the long braid at the back to hit the side door, looking through the window into Ana's honey-hazel eyes. Ana could only stare back in a familiar silence.

"Declora?"

---

That's all for now! D Sorry, I just had to introduce Ana real fast, and I know that was a pretty lengthy introduction but a short chapter! TT I had to stop though, otherwise I'd keep going too long and end up with too much for it to stay a prologue! Oh well, Chapter 2'll be juicy and introduce Declora and the crossover. And yes, Ana will be our protagonist…and perhaps our antagonist too. 3 Juuuuuicyyyyy. By the way, that's Ana saying Declora, the lady in the car isn't calling Ana that. Phew, big explanation here. One more thing! Ana is a shortened version of her real name, which you'll find out later. So yes, you may sigh in relief now that we don't have a protagonist with a boring name. P I hate it when that happens. Ok everyone, review and stick around for Chapter 1, cause it's gonna rock, I promise. P …I hope. TT


	2. Declorum Factor

Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form (except a PS2 copy ) own Kingdom Hearts. However, I do own Ana and Declora. They are my OC's and mine alone.

Chapter 1-Declorum Factor

09/15/05

"What're you doing here? …How did you know I'd be out here? What the hell did you do to your face?" Ana stood and flew to the car door, latching her hand to the window space to keep from crashing into the car. Declora stuck the left side of her now much longer bangs behind her ear and applied some spit to it to stick it there. Ana could hardly believe that this woman was her benevolent yet normally modest caretaker. Declora had always taken care of her, not since before she could remember, but for as long as she'd been around. She always wore black dresses and slacks, sometimes with a little white neck lace and clear lip gloss, but never anything like this. Truth be said, she actually looked quite good in this form of dress, but it didn't fit her normality to any effect. Her normally white eyelids were now splattered with black mascara that carried down around the corners of both eyes and ran into red paint that made little slashes under her eyes and onto her high cheeks. Her lipstick was just as dark, though there was icy blue lip liner assimilating it with her pale pink skin tone. However, her clothing hadn't changed much, however elbow length satin gloves had been added, the fingers cut off to show her nail-less fingertips. Her dress was still simple and black, the sleeves short to keep them separate from the gloves and a small amount of white lace was tucked into the high collar. She now resembled a macabre version of a porcelain doll from the early 1900's.

"Do you want to come home or not, because if you do, I would greatly appreciate it if you would step into the car so we may depart." She finally spoke, her teeth still white as newly fallen snow, seeming out of place against her contrasting lipstick. Ana opened the door in a daze, but her eyes never left Declora's new face. She was still curious about why Declora had come, normally if she went home to skip class, she'd simply walk the 2 and a half miles it took to get there, not ever remembering minding the walk. It was mostly the trail she took through the forest on the side of the highway to get away from the burn of the exhaust smoke and the scream of angry drivers' horns. She'd walked it so many times, she'd beaten in her own path, although the first few times, she had to duck beneath branches and step through some very tall ferns to get through. Declora had never said anything about her skipping class, keeping her opinions to herself as usual, knowing that Ana knew her education was important and, taking that into consideration, she stayed for important lectures and tests, however, when she ruled that the lesson for today was moronic and pretty pointless, she went on home. Slouching down into the leather seat of the Eclipse, she pulled the door shut and looked down at her own tired attire. Her tight blue shirt was getting too short and her flabby midriff was beginning to show, which wasn't quite proper, so she made a mental note to buy a new one soon. Also, it would probably make quite a few people ask quite a few too many questions if everyone saw that she had no navel. She never knew why, she just didn't have one, like some people were born without eyelashes, she supposed. She couldn't be more proud of the horrible condition of her blue jeans though. The knees were worn straight through, showing the numerous scars lining her knees from hiking through the woods all those times, there was a stubborn cranberry juice stain just under her left pocket from who-knows-when, a burn mark from when she tried to fry some fish and dropped the skillet on herself. So many memories, in one pair of pants…

"Were you not asking earlier how I knew you were here?" Declora hacked into her train of thoughts, painfully derailing it and looking over at Ana for one moment before looking back to the road in front of her. Her look reminded Ana she wasn't wearing her seatbelt, so she rolled over and grabbed to fasten it, answering her question at the same time.

"Yeah, I was wondering. School doesn't get out for another 2 hours and there's no way you could have known I'd be out here this early. I got in…a fight, some senior didn't like the way I looked. I think I'm okay though, my jaw broken and my eye hurts. I think I should get the jaw wired up as soon as possible, it's killin' me to talk with it like this." She turned to look out the window, the green scenery whisking by at speeds too fast for her to track. She and Declora lived in a small rental house, the closest and cheapest thing they could get close to the schools, and they'd lived there for 8 years now. Ana never complained about the house size, since all she needed was the one room she had and a bathroom, and Declora had her bedroom adjacent to the kitchen and sun room (she'd dubbed it sun room instead of living room since two large windows were set in the wall, throwing in huge amounts of sunlight in the early morning). They'd gotten one of the only small houses around with a full basement, the perfect size for all of Declora's lab equipment. She'd been so much into science since Ana had known her, but Ana had never seen any of the experiments she did, if she did any at all. However, she did sneak around sometimes when Declora was cooking or washing clothing. The equipment was well-kept, not a speck of dust to be found, and sometimes, early in the morning, she could come down and find some of it still warm. Still, she respected Declora's privacy, since Declora had never intruded on hers.

"I didn't know you would be out there." Declora's mouth tightened to a line, showing that she was carefully thinking over her next words. "I needed to show you something at home that I think is rather important." Her mouth tightened further, now pondering whether she should really tell her the entire story. "It's in my lab." This got Ana's attention quite well. She looked over immediately, amazed that Declora would mention anything about her lab. The computers and growing chambers down there made it rather obvious that she wasn't just boiled eggs down there. Whatever she was doing was top secret, illegal, or both. "Also…I think you may want to bring those claws you have under your bed. I found them last week while I was cleaning." This was a surprise too. The claws she had weren't exactly a secret, she just didn't find any reason for Declora to know about them. They were a pair of simple black bike gloves that she had attached some claw-shaped blades to that she'd made in metal smithing last year. However, she had scratched up some trees in the front yards, so Declora could have seen those and went looking for the gloves. Without meaning to, she connected this thought to one that made her realize that if she needed her claws, something was in that lab that shouldn't be. Something that Declora hadn't expected.

Something dangerous.

Just at the finish of Ana's fearful thoughts, Declora pulled in front of their house, which had no driveway or garage. Strangely enough, they had no mailbox either and had never received any mail. Both of their neighbors had fences separating their lawns, as if they were hiding behind their fences in fear of them. Declora turned the key away from her to shut off the engine, which roared before giving away to the rest it was forced to take, and stepped out into the street, waltzing around to the other side to open Ana's door for her. Ana stepped out and dashed to the metal screen front door, throwing it open and tearing through her room, desperate to get her claws and explore the depths of the basement for whatever had Declora so frazzled. Of course, anyone else listening to her talk would have thought she was frighteningly composed with every word she spoke, but the pauses she put between her phrases now weren't normal. The normal speaking tone was monotonous, but this carried just the smallest hint of fear, and having lived with Declora for so long, Ana could detect any emotion in her voice, no matter how small.

Army-crawling under her bed, she located the claws, strapped to the bottom of the mattress with a piece of brown packing tape, just as she'd left them. Perhaps Declora knew how to keep her prying a secret as well. Nevertheless, she tugged the claws down, not bothering to take the tape off until she was out from under the bed. While doing so, she noticed the low quality of the metal in the claws. At the time, she's only made the blades as a project, not planning to use them as anything except maybe a decent oversized pocket knife. Each one was simply iron, 6 inches long, ¾ inch thick. Still, unless this was something like a Bengal tiger, it should get the job done. Seeing as there were no Bengal tigers wandering the outskirts of Philadelphia, she doubted she'd have to worry about anything like that. Declora then came by her room, her beloved kitchen knife in her hand, beckoning her to follow with a single finger. They were walking down the stairs, Declora clinging to the railing with her free hand and Ana slipping her hands into her gloves, stretching her fingers to make sure they still fitted, when she thought of something strange.

"Declora…Am I a clone? Is that why I don't have parents but I'm not an orphan? You said that once." She didn't have the faintest idea why she'd chosen to ask Declora this at such an unreasonable time, but she felt somehow, that if she didn't ask now, she'd never get the chance. Declora didn't even break her stride, she just answered while she kept walking, rounding the corner of the stairs and going towards the north door to the lab. She put her hand on the doorknob before her finally answered, her tone tired.

"Yes Ana, you are a clone. I cloned you 16 years ago from a bit of dark matter I found on a space mission a few years earlier. However, I had to implant some human genes to give you a proper form so I used my own. Although it isn't a conventional birth, I still qualify as your mother, though all the records say you simply appeared out of nowhere, no parents to be spoken of. That's why you have no memories of parents and also why you have no navel. It's proof that you were not a human birth. So now you know, because that information will be vital to you in the very near future, and the situation gave you the latent thought to ask." She looked back for just a moment, what might have been a hint of the first smile Ana had ever seen on Declora's face. "There is one more thing though. There's a chance that we will have to part for a time, so I believe I should tell you now. Ana is only a nickname, a shortened version of what I originally called you. Your name is Animosity Arcanum. Lovely, isn't it?" She turned back to the door and turned the knob before Ana had time to even think about the effect of all that she'd ever said. With turning the knob, Ana assumed Declora had opened the door, but she only cracked it open enough to get the lock out of place, then stood back, and in what was the most un-Declora action Ana had ever seen, she lifted her dress to her knee and kicked the door open, sending it flying into the wall behind it, the knob cracking a hole in the wall. With lifting her dress, Declora's leather stilettos were shown and Ana realized that she was prepared for a fight.

The moment the door was wide enough to squeeze through, a small little creeping black thing climbing through, no more than 25 cm tall it was. Its little antennae twittered at the stimulus of someone nearby and its gleaming yellow eyes turned to face the organism to its left, who just happened to be Declora. They locked eyes for a moment and Declora's expression visibly darkened. They stood in what seemed like suspended animation for a moment, and the creature made the first move, leaping a height that seemed impossible for its small size, trying to launch itself onto Declora, but she wouldn't allow it, bringing the blade side of the knife down with the force and grace of a seasoned profession, slicing clear through the creature's head, causing it to break into small particles of what looked like black smoke, until nothing of it remained. Now Ana knew something very strange was going on and she readied her claws, getting a nod from Declora signaling that more were inside and to kill anything they knew to not be of this world. However, Ana had to say something.

"Declora…what was that just now? Did you…make that?"

"It's a mutation of the matter I used to create you. I was fiddling with the machine a few weeks ago, taking samples of the matter to see if its composition had changed at all over the years and it had become like a sphere of shadows that just seemed to inhale all the light around it in the chamber. Apparently, these things have been growing or breeding since that matter mutated. They're hostile and I don't have a good feeling about them, so I see no reason to let them live." Her face kept darkening, her outfit and makeup now forming together what Ana, or Animosity, hadn't seen before, that she looked like a gothic assassin, glimmering knife in hand. Without another word, she lay against the wall and rolled along it and the doorframe into the lab, gasping at what she now saw of her caretaker's laboratory.

The dark creatures had completely taken the place over, dozens of them covering everything, the consoles, the chambers, and the computers, everything clothed in them. The spaces that weren't occupied by them were blanketed in a strange, cold feeling shadow that seemed to sift and wave as if it were alive. Declora was right behind her, already hacking and slashing at the creatures tearing at her feet, her beloved dress now frayed at the edges from the effect of the creatures' claws. After hacking away the creatures in her immediate area, she charged forward to join Ana at her side, illustrating that Ana was at least 5 inches shorter than Declora, who now seemed very threatening with her height and attire combined. In the center of the room was the main chamber, a gargantuan cylinder of powder white glass fixed to the floor and ceiling by titanium attachments. Simply floating in the very center of the chamber was the sphere Declora had spoken of. It was almost exactly as she'd described, a ball with about a 5 inches diameter, made completely of darkness, pulsing and shifting like a living thing. Ana wanted to step away in disgust and fear of the strangeness of the ball that had given her existence, but her legs would only move forward or stay put. Choosing to move forward, she stepped closer to the chamber, her stride carefully slow, the screams of the creatures behind her being cut down by Declora as she pursued Ana to the chamber. Somehow, the creatures didn't seem to bother her, they actually seemed to shrink away in fear, retreating to their voluptuous form of shadows in the corners.

"Ana!" Declora cried and Ana spun on her heel, in fear that her creator could be in trouble. However, she was holding her ground well and seemed to have to say one more thing. "Ana…I want you to go ahead!" She looked unsure for a moment, but it vanished as she glared back in determination.

"Go where? What are you talking about?" Ana furrowed her brow in confusion. The only door out was behind Declora and she could easily get to it faster than Ana could, so where could she want her to go?

"Break the glass and get the sphere!"

"Why?"

"Do as I say, Animosity!" Ana winced as Declora used her true name, such a strange name seeming detached from her. Still, for the first time, her creator had given her a direct command and she didn't feel that she should disobey, so she nodded and turned back, hurrying to the chamber and, acting on the first thought that came to her, smashing through the glass with her claws first and then her fist. Glass flew past her, grazing her face and running blood into her eyes. Immediately, the creatures turned their heads to her, the smell of her blood and the sound of the glass breaking catching their attention. A few of them chanced skittering closer to her, but came no closer than a few feet away. Instead, they turned back to Declora, who cried in pain as one of them near her jumped up behind her and began climbing up her braid to scratch her face. She nicked it off her shoulder with her bare hands and held it out in front of her, slicing its head clean off right before her.

"Animosity, grab the sphere now! The creatures won't stay subdued for long, you must go quickly!" She cried in desperation, although Ana was still lost to what all of this now meant, but she had a feeling she'd be going somewhere if she touched that sphere and feared for her creator's safety if she left.

"Declora, what about you? Are you going to come with me? I won't leave you here, you go first!" She made an attempt to move toward her, but Declora came to her instead, crouching down to come to eye level with her, her dark blue eyes shimmering with the adrenaline of battle.

"I have told you too many times now. Go and never disobey me again. You are Animosity Arcanum, my creation. You will never forget for as long as you shall live. Go now and find your path without me." She now fully smiled, a motherly grin of wisdom. She switched her knife to her left hand and put her right hand over Ana's face, her fingers parted so she could see. With one small movement, she pushed Ana back, the backs of her knees knocking against the bottom of the chamber as she fell onto the sphere. It should have been smaller than her head, but it swelled to swallow her up, and she was gone. Declora smiled again in victory, gazing into the ball, now back to its normal size and her creation now somewhere entirely out of her reach.

Sensing the sudden absence of their object of fear, the creatures now moved in on Declora. She threw her knife back into her right hand, but had no true intention of fighting. She had accomplished what she had brought Ana down there to do, but she wasn't about to go down without a brutal struggle. She brought her knife up in time to slash down on jumping for her face but another caught her side, slashing it open, causing her to scream again. Stumbling sideways, clenching her bleeding side with her free hand but not lowering her weapon, getting one in the head as it crawled up her right leg and twisting her spine to catch another trying to gnaw on her injured side. With her attention on her injury, one more bit her knife hand, making her drop the knife in time for another to slash both of her ankles, bringing her to her knees. Many more appeared out of the floor to attack her legs, which were quickly covered in slashes and they slowed worked up her abdomen until she lay on the floor in exhaustion and pain, all too aware that her end was near. Her side was now bleeding profusely and the creatures crowded around her, her dress in tatters and one of them leaping onto her back, raising its claw to tear through the space between her shoulder blades. She felt it jump on her back and knew this was the end, a tear sliding down her face in happiness, knowing she had lived for a purpose.

"Seize your destiny, Animosity, for you are the feather on the scale of balance. I hope to see you…soon." Her voice grew to a faint whisper and a gasp as the creature tore through her, bringing a faint crimson glow into view.

----

Tada! And there is chapter 1…and dang, it's twice the length of the prologue! Oo (This chapter: 3,763 words!) Both chapters were written one right after the other, and I mean right after. Oh, I dearly hope you all like this, cause I think it rocks. But now I'm sad. I have just had to create and eliminate Declora in one chapter! Nooo! She was my favorite next to Animosity…Oh well, I may bring her back later in some ridiculous form of logic. She was just a catalyst for good story drama anyway. But yes, there is the start of Animosity of the Dark. Review please, my writing needs checking! Oo Writers with no reviews never get better and never write new stories. Um, but explanations for this chapter, Declora and Animosity are of course OC's, I came up with their names myself, Declora's just one I thought of out of nowhere. Chapter 2 should be up very quickly since I don't wanna hang off this otherwise I'll lose the flow of the story and it won't be as good! By the way, Animosity has a dirty little secret that should show up in Chapter 3. Be on the lookout for that one. Review please!


	3. Rising of Shadows

Chapter 2-Rising of Shadows

09/16/05

"Declora, please!" Ana barely had time to stretch her fingers out in desperation as she tripped and fell backward into the chamber, the backs of her knees grazing roughly on the broken glasses on the edges. She watched helplessly as Declora's pale face shifted into a broken smile of pure sorrow, or at least, that's what she took from it. She tumbled back, bracing herself for either collision with the sphere or the bottom of the chamber, but she waited and waited with her eyes squeezed shut. The impact never came. She felt a slow pulling sensation just above her hairline, as if someone had grabbed her bangs and was pulling her through calm waters. She had a strange feeling that she wasn't where she thought she was anymore, the air smelled differently, though she wasn't at all sure how she knew what the air smelled like. She was dragged with her eyes sealed shut and her body frozen solid for what felt like days, what could have been minutes, and might have been years. However, near the end of her float through the abyss, the dragging sped up to the point of where whatever was pulling at her scalp felt like it may tear loose from her head. She screeched in pain as she felt herself being thrown, her body coming loose and…

"Aii!"

A wall. She came blurring through the east wall of an alley, however her transparency broke apart, making her solid enough to crack her head straight into the west wall. The impact knocked her unconscious for a moment, making her blind and dizzy when she woke up. It felt as if a large quantity of smoke had compacted inside her head and was now getting tossed around violently within. Taking her mind off the pain in her crown, forehead, and now a new case of nausea creeping around her stomach and chest, she slid down the wall, now realizing she had hit the wall and stayed standing. Her thoughts frayed for a moment, and materialized with Declora. She sucked in a gasp between her clenched teeth, thinking of how unlikely it was that Declora was even still alive. She had been horrendously outnumbered, at least 50 to 1, her hair was frazzled, her beloved dress in tatters, those creatures swarming around here, even as Ana looked on….

The guilt became too much to handle with her current low state and rolled to her side, feeling what little food she'd had to eat before school creeping dangerously up her throat, her vision blurring and her head pounding furiously, begging her to lay down. She felt her short-lived consciousness fading, but before she faded to black, one more thought crept into her mind.

"W-where…am I…" She croaked softly, unable to speak anymore and rolled onto her side, asleep before she even hit the ground.

---

'Colors…they're all swimming together, how beautiful…But there's…someone here with me…but they aren't a color…'

"Why aren't you…a color?" Ana suddenly started speaking without thinking about a word she said and the colorless form before her began to chuckle at her senseless words. Her eyesight was terrible; she only knew she was in a room lying on a bed, the covers in a bunch under her left hand. All of this she could only tell by feeling the bed and covers beneath her and seeing the vague outlines of walls around her, the colorless figure just a blob of black wandering closer to her. She could only guess that she had suffered some sort of strange concussion when she hit her head that had somehow affected her vision dramatically. The blob now backed away and began to pace around the bed and Ana laid back onto her pillow, her head beginning to swim again. She swiveled her hand around her side until she grabbed hold of the cover and pulled it over her lower abdomen, the majority of it trapped under her. She let out a heavy sigh and saw the blob turn to face her, noticing her despair.

"You…can you…fix me? I can't see anything. I want to see…what you look like?" She began to feel like a blind old woman, begging to see the face of a beloved grandson, when she was asking this stranger to fix her eyes when she wasn't sure where she was, how she'd gotten here, and what this person had in mind to do with her here. Still, she couldn't help but feel too feeble to erect her normal hostile shield around herself, jumping straight to insults and violence the minute someone tried to get through to her. Declora was gone…she hadn't the slightest where she had ended up, though it surely didn't feel like home. Though it didn't seem logical or even possible, that matter in the case…

"It brought you here, yes." The blob was addressing her again, now closer as she felt the bed under her rise a bit, the blob taking a seat next to her. Whoever it was brought their hand up to rest it on her forehead, their warmth relaxing her senses a bit. However, it didn't feel quite as warm as her forehead did, telling her she'd somehow come down with a slight fever, perhaps attributing partially to her sight problem. Just as she started thinking about it, the hand on her forehead cool down to the point where she felt she had to be burning, but her eyes began to clear, the blob in front of her incorporating into a tight leather suit, pale skin, and shining silver hair. The hand on her forehead, long-fingered and covered in black leather as well. Somehow, he had indeed repaired her eyesight, though how Ana didn't know, and pondering how would only make her situation worse. Now seeing the stranger for what he was and not a blob, she ruled him to be rather handsome, a rare face that wasn't often seen around Pennsylvania. His hair hung longer, almost longer than hers, ending around his mid waist. His face was closer to hers now, studying her face and eyes, probing for who she was and where she had come from. His green met her brown and locked, his expression tensing in thought. Somehow, her mental space suddenly felt violated and Ana fought back the best she could, though it wasn't easy not knowing how exactly to fight back using only one's mind. She felt something break inside her mind and the stranger's eyes suddenly grew wide and broke the stare, his body suddenly falling back onto his side, grunting loudly in pain as he laid his head on the footboard, panting as if he'd run a marathon and just come in the door.

'Oh no, now what have I done…' Ana somehow felt guilty and rose painfully out of the bed and came to his side, watching his breathing slow and the painful grimace on his face soften. "What happened to you, are you gonna be okay?" Confusion now joined the swirls of thoughts and memories rattling indecently inside her head, begging for some explanation on what was happening now. She got to her knees so her face was rather close to his, though his eyes were still closed as he tried to re-gather his composure. Somehow the pieces came together as she remembered the strange feeling she had felt with her mind, connecting with the fact that he looked her straight in the eye until he fell back in pain. Things were just getting making less and less sense as time went on. "You were the intrusion. You were trying to read my mind and I threw you out, is that what happened?" He nodded weakly and rolled onto his back, his left hand at his side and the right rested on his chest, keeping a tab on his breathing apparently. He looked so pathetic compared to how handsome and strong he had looked only minutes ago. However, Ana wasn't going to help him until she squeezed some necessary information out of him, because she was quite sure that he knew plenty. Mimicking his behavior when Ana had been the weak one, she sat next to his, grabbing the blanket from behind and pulling it over him, thought not tucking in the sides so he wouldn't roast under the heavy wool.

"I want answers and I don't think you're in any position to say otherwise." He nodded again, a little stronger and now breathing through his nose, his mouth taut in anger at his current weakness and inability to resist her inquiries. Ana however looked quite satisfied with his cooperation. "First off, where am I? Not just this house, what is this town or is there even a town beyond here? And how did you find me? I seem to recall I woke up in an alleyway."

"This is…Nalar, city of memories lost." His voice was low and slightly squeaky, as if he'd just woken from a nap. "The alleyway you woke in was the space between this house and the one next door. I heard the crash of you hitting the wall and went outside to see and there you were. I don't know why I brought you in, you looked so pathetic. You threw up before you collapsed by the way." He looked toward the window on the opposite wall, refusing to look her in the eye. Ana found this kind of amusing, since he was avoiding her like he was ashamed of being so compassionate of bringing her into his house.

"Wait, is this even your house?"

"I don't know, it was empty so I took it. I don't…I don't like sleeping outside."

'Well yah sure don't like talking much either.' "Are you staying here alone then?"

"Who are you?" He suddenly turned and finally looked at her again, intent on getting the information he wanted. "I won't tell anything to a complete stranger, it's idiotic." His eyes narrowed at her hesitance as she now noticed his pupils were elongated, like that of a cat's. Normally that would have seemed excessively strange and maybe a bit frightening to her, but current situations had given her a bit of a new take on what exactly was strange. His eyes were probably the most normal thing she'd seen all day.

"My name is…I'll only tell me if you tell me yours." She now got on her knees, bouncing a bit to get there as if she was at a sleepover, about to reveal her deepest, darkest secret.

"Fine."

"A…Animosity."

"Yazoo, nice to meet you."

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Whoo-hoo, I got Yazoo in there! So proud! Now truth be told, this was going to be longer but the other two fics I read both got updated today and I felt like a total lazy-ass if I didn't update today too. O.o Weird huh? But hey, I got it sorta accomplished…I think I'll make this a part 1 so I can introduce the reason for the title of the chapter in the next one. Now explanations, Nalar is the town I created for "My lovely Nue Ehr" which is the last fic I wrote before this, so that's just a tiny reference. Funny thing though, Yazoo was originally going to be Zexion (I love bringing dead people back ;D) but I watched Advent Children this weekend and I just HAD to put him in there cause he had no major role. Great movie by the way. When it comes out in America, everyone should buy it cause it rocks, or you could…well you should know the rest. Another thing! I looked up the stats for the first two chapters and I got 30 hits and 1 REVIEW! This is sad, people! I need to know how I'm writing or I'll never get any better! sob Please review…push the button, for every time you don't push the button…uh…I dunno, something wittingly bad happens, mwahaha! ;D All right, till next chapter!


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